The present invention relates to a label for attachment to a product and to a method of producing labels.
It is frequently desirable to be able to attach a sheet of printed instructions to a product, and to avoid soiling of the sheet during handling of the product or loss of the sheet during such handling, it is desirable that the sheet should be enclosed in an envelope and held from falling out. If the means for holding the sheet can be made such as to require a non-repeatable action to remove the sheet from the envelope, they will afford an indication of unathorised tampering.
British Pat. No. 1,475,304 and British Patent Specification No. 2115744 each disclose a sheet and envelope arrangement which is formed from a single fold sheet. When the sheet and envelope arrangement is attached to a product, the sheet can be removed from the envelope by tearing along a line of perforations. However, those arrangements suffer from the disadvantage that the folding of the sheet to form the final sheet and envelope is relatively complicated. In addition, the sheet requires to be die-cut from a larger sheet since the sheet is provided with cuts or cut-outs. The die-cutting operation must be carried out on individual sheets and this renders it difficult to produce the labels in a continuous process since the die-cutting step is a separate process step. This tends to reduce the rate of production of the labels and accordingly increases the unit cost of the labels.
The present invention relates to a label in which a sheet portion is enclosed between a front cover and a back cover and can be removed by tearing along a weakened tear-line. The folding of a longidutinal strip to form the sheet portion and the front and back covers is less complicated than in the prior art referred to above. Also, the strip does not require cuts or cut outs which in the prior art are produced by die-cutting.